Original Reads

The employment market in Rhode Island has been disproportionately adverse to women and minorities, according to data released today by the nonpartisan Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity, in conjunction with the Liberty Foundation.

While the overall labor participation rate declined for the entire state by 2.4 percentage points from 2010 through 2013 to 65.3%, the decline among certain minority demographic groups in Rhode Island was considerably worse.

"It is obvious that the tax and spend policies implemented by our elected officials have failed our state and have been especially harmful to the very same people many of these spending programs were intended to help," said Mike Stenhouse, CEO for the Center. "A new, pro-jobs public policy culture is sorely needed if we're to help the tens of thousands of Ocean Staters who are unemployed or who have quit looking for work."

With a general election scheduled for early November, the Center advises voters to think hard about whether or not to re-elect incumbent legislators and whether or not to approve a Constitutional Convention that would give the people of Rhode Island a more prominent voice in how their government operates. "The time is now to move away from the special interest politics that have crippled our state," added Stenhouse.